Scouting for reefs in need of servicing

Last week a team of TISIRI divers made a trip offshore Jacksonville Florida in effort to locate and verify habitat sites for an upcoming reef restoration effort. The goal was to identify reef locations that had fishing line and anchor rope entanglement hazards that could benefit from our reef clean up efforts this summer.

Although it was not planned we ended up diving a site that was composed of bridge rubble place offshore decades ago (Old Acosta Bridge). The site today is an elaborate coral garden filled with life. Here is a brief video of the Acosta Bridge material reef site showing its condition today.

The site was actually pretty clean and was determined not to be a candidate for this summer's reef restoration efforts. We also dove a barge reef in the area and surprisingly it was fairly clean as well. This is good news but we will have to continue to scout to determine our reef clean-up locations.